Diabetes - An alarming sweet story
What is diabetes?
Diabetes is associated with overly high blood glucose aka blood sugar. Glucose (aka blood sugar) is the main source of energy produced when food is digested in our body.
Insulin, a hormone made by the pancreas, helps glucose from food get into our cells by converting glucose into energy to be used by our body.
If our body doesn't have enough insulin, or if our insulin is not working properly, the amount of glucose staying in the blood becomes unnecessarily high. Over time, having too much glucose in our blood can cause health problems.
Signs and Symptoms
At the initial stage of diabetes, your body will not show obvious symptoms. But when the condition progresses further, you will easily feel tired and thirsty. Besides, you tend to urinate more frequently in larger amounts. Your body will also start to lose muscles and weight over time.
As diabetes is a disease that develops gradually, long-term diabetes can cause serious damage to the body and increases the risk of arteriosclerosis and coronary artery disease, which often lead to stroke and terrifying heart attacks.
Types of diabetes
Type 1 diabetes
Occurs when the pancreas could not secrete enough insulin. This is caused by an autoimmune destruction of pancreatic beta cells. These cells are responsible for producing and secreting insulin. This type of diabetes is more prevalent among children and young people.
Type 2 diabetes
It is an inheritable disease as a result of aging, overeating, obesity, lack of exercise etc. As Type 2 diabetes does not show symptoms unless it reaches a harmful state, hence it is always important to manage and treat it even if there were no obvious signs..
Gestational Diabetes
Occurs during pregnancy and usually goes away after baby is born.
Type 2 diabetes is the most common type that affects people worldwide, where the body does not make or use insulin well. In Singapore, diabetes is a fast growing problem. Many people are unaware that they are diabetic, and those who are aware, may be controlling their condition poorly.
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